Anyone here going to the Gnomon workshop? I would like to meet some fellow speedpainters. Reply here if your'e interested in saying HI.
I can testify that the gnomon workshops are great, for anyone thinking on attending.

Last edited by octavian on Wed Dec 13, 2006 12:36 pm; edited 2 times in total

ecsdesign, Max Kulich: here ya go, my notes from the workshop all typed up and stuff.

These notes do not necessarily come from direct quotes from the instructors, there are inferences in there as well. So please, I'm not trying to nail down anyone's dogma here... If I got it wrong, my bad.

During shots of people or things, like 3 people for instance (fig. 4), think of how you would stagger them for a more interesting composition... instead of just lining them up. For instance, one could be in close-up range of camera, one at medium distance, and the last further away (almost out of shot).

all these ideas are being conceptualized in the early sketch/gestural stage of story boarding. It's ok for these first sketches to look marginally good, the director should have a sophisticated enough eye to see what your getting at to make crits for the final boards.

and of course in the early stage Dan was working with large shapes and gestural lines

Key things that stood out to me about Dan Milligan:
-having fun with his drawings, i.e. staying loose and humorous.
-act it out in your mind, like a child playing imaginary games; loose yourself into your imagination... make sound effects if you have to.
-story boarding is about conveying action, lens, format, mood.

Before adding value, make sure to get line weights proper as they can suggest a lot of depth and dimension. The line weight is what makes the drawing come alive.

when adding value, alternate shapes, light against dark.

Steps for rendering:
-describe major forms and shapes
-transitioning from dark to light
-render in flat shadows (sometimes it's best to draw out their contour lines first before filling in the value)
-render in core shadows
-Grads, thicker at bottom of shadow and build out from there
-reinforce the shape of the form with value

Last thoughts:
-lots of practice and for Dave, developing his own style was a process of working hard, looking at other artists, mimicking things he liked in their work and a lot more practice.
-You have to love to draw

This time he started with a photo and smudged it (smudge tool had a scattering effect on it) leaving only an abstract palette.
The idea is to work from a middle grey value canvas. This way you only have to render maximum of 5 steps up to light, and 5 steps down to dark. Unlike a white canvas where you have to render down 10 steps to absolute dark.

Working abstractly with shapes. Using only two values: a light value of about 3 and a dark value of about 7.

Keep working with only these two values until something emerges. (again, this is not to say that he works this way always as he says he always changes it up (and the idea behind this is that he figures since he can't change his way of thinking too dramatically, he figures no matter how he starts he'll always end up with "Craig Mullins" images))

Be careful not to put in too much contrast, not until last steps.

It is better to remain flatter in the beginning to keep the silhouettes clean. Also, keep to much texturing out of the early stages as it confuses the shapes.

Looking for design and composition first

Tips on techniques:
-you can model something up in 3d, take a screen cap, and run a find edges filter over the 3d model. Set the layer to multiply and you'll have something to paint on that gives structure without too much variation (value?)

-some times bring up a canvas, like 500x800 pixels, marquee off little sections and do very small thumbnail roughs in there until something emerges. Then blow it up and paint.

-allow yourself a certain amount of time for brainstorming and creativity. Do not allow judgement to come during that time. At a particular time, look back at the brainstorm and then make decisions about where to go from there.

-Hierarchal significance for any color: 1. Value 2. Saturation 3. Hue

-Positioning of head mass relative to torso mass is a key relationship in the attitude of an illustration.

-To detail or "figure out" a section of a painting in a lower rez image; make a selection of what to detail, copy and paste in new file. Uprez the file by 1000% and paint all on a new layer. When done reduce file to 10% it's size, copy all the painting on the extra layer, paste back into original image (marquee selection should still be there though!)

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Iain McCaig and David Krentz // Character Redesign

-When concepting, Iain thinks very briefly about image and then he brainstorms through drawing on paper.

-No worries when brainstorming, the drawings are supposed to look bad. Just get the ideas out of your head and make judgements later.

-Always draw whatever comes to mind, it's supposed to look stupid. When the idea is there, go research and make the final, GOOD image.

-David Krentz is opposite when concepting, he prefers to do lots of research and thinking before putting pencil to paper. Key is do what works for you.

-Krentz suggests book by Jackham, "how to draw animals"

-Iconic figures, like superman, batman, etc. all come from the very edge of silliness. Sometimes all that is needed to make an icon is to take them all the way to silliness and then pull it back just enough to make it not laughable.

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Octavian's Take on the whole Gnomon workshop:

-Craig Mullins is Willie Wonka.

-Stay loose, the early stages should look bad.

-Technique should be subordinate to good working habits (i.e. work in stages and allow the early stages to develop concepts without judgement or concern for formal likeness)

-Give yourself breathing room in the sketch/exploration phase.

-as Iain said, "have fun... if your not having fun, then go do something fun!"